INTERVIEW:GIGI

Toby: We "met" back on Twitter when I was just a musical rando making tweets at you. I really looked up to you back then… okay, maybe I still do a little now, too . What was your impression of me though?

Gigi: Please allow me to recount a memory of the first time I exhibited at a convention. When I was walking toward the event hall, you happened to be nearby, talking with some friends about which artists you were looking forward to meeting. Because you knew I was in earshot, you shouted, “I’m really excited to see GGDG!!!” This being the first time we met in person, I thought, “Ah, it’s that guy.”

Anyway, I mean all of this to say that I thought you were weird. I was also weird, so it makes sense that we got along. My earliest memories of you are as an energetic and fearless little dog.

Toby: Many people don't remember, but UNDERTALE was initially released as a DEMO back in 2012. The DEMO only contained the RUINS area, but… what was your impression of UNDERTALE from it???

Gigi: I was shocked that you’d made it. Of course I don’t mean this in a disparaging way; I knew you were talented, but the thought of (basically) one person making such a coherent game was staggering to me. Before I met you and other developer friends, I had never considered that just “making a video game,” let alone a good one, was something people could do on their own. It was amazing.

As for the content of the demo… I’m not sure if I ever told you this, but when I first played, I killed Toriel, and the hint to try for a different outcome went completely over my head. It was only after I watched a mutual friend play that I “got” it, which pushed my impression from “pretty impressed” to “shocked.”

Toby: By the way, thanks for doing this promotional art for me that I put on Steam.

Gigi: It was my pleasure. I’m still fond of it, though I think I could do the foreshortening better now.

Toby: You were one of the playtesters of UNDERTALE, and so you were able to play the final game before it released. How did you feel about the completed game? And, what did you think would happen when it was released…?

Gigi: I was already shocked by the demo, so the actual completion of the entire game was a bigger shock. Though it feels almost cliché to say, I’d never played anything like it before. I can’t pretend to have predicted just how influential it would become, but I truly felt at the time that it was a remarkable achievement.

I also clearly remember that when you asked me if I found anything in the game to be annoying, I answered without hesitation, “Onionsan.”

Toby: There was a period of time you shipped Sans and Toriel (observing)

Gigi: I don’t understand why this is in past tense.

Toby: I still have memories of showing you and Chess a dramatic battle from UNDERTALE in a hotel room… I remember it was the first time I had shown the battle to anyone else. Wasn’t that the battle with Sans? Do you guys remember this? Also I will also include Chess for this question. Chess come here.

Gigi: I think some memories might be blending together here. I do remember when you showed me the Undyne the Undying battle in a hotel hallway, having to quickly flip down your laptop whenever someone stopped to talk. I also remember when you showed Chess and me the early parts of DELTARUNE the night before we went to Korea.

But my most vivid memory of the Sans fight is playtesting it on my own. I believe the battle was toned down a bit to accommodate me. Chess, being much better at games than I am, had to do it the real way.

Tangentially, I remember a few moments during my initial playthrough when I would message you for insight on how to proceed. You’d always get really intense and respond along the lines of, “It’s your choice.” I felt slightly like a horror movie protagonist.

Chess: I SOMEHOW DON'T REMEMBER THIS AT ALL...??? i'm pretty sure my first time seeing the sans fight was on my own playthrough... i do at least have a memory of being the first playtester to defeat sans, but it's been long enough that i can't be certain of whether that's true or not. i DO remember being shown some mid-development undertale stuff in a hotel room, but the thing i remember seeing wasn't sans. it was a debug demonstration of a random attack where you had to maneuver around beneath a creature with very long legs. i remember thinking it was really fun... actually, didn't you tell me much later that this attack was going to be its own standalone minigame or something...? i remember you had really lofty ambitions for it. the legend of leg...

Toby: I will talk about leg in a different episode

Toby: Not a question! But originally I made a fan song for your character Noisemaster from your old comic Cucumber Quest. (I was big into making music for web comics back then)... This ended up being partially remade and repurposed as Mettaton's theme...

Thank you for inspiring me. Also do you remember this art...

Gigi: Again, it was my pleasure. I was so thrilled by the Noisemaster theme when I first heard it that I listened to it on repeat for days.

And yes, of course I remember. It was a very self-indulgent drawing.

Toby: I remember back when the game came out, you were instrumental in initially spreading the word about it... You let me take out a banner ad on your webcomic that stayed up there for months. Even though Twitter existed back then, the Internet was quite a bit smaller so I feel like it probably made a little bit of difference. I really appreciated that.

You even put an UNDERTALE reference directly in the comic by including a scene where one of the characters wears slippers of Toriel's face, which are now, seven years later, actually becoming merchandise... (as well as sort of appearing in DR themselves...)

I never forgot these slippers... (Fangamer if you're reading this please send me and Gigi free slippers and also Chess and also Temmie)

Gigi: Looking back, the idea of a banner ad for UNDERTALE on a piddly little webcomic page like mine is absurd. The internet really has changed so much in only a few years! At the time, I was just proud of my friend and wanted to show off the game he’d worked so hard on.

I would certainly appreciate a pair of those slippers, though.

Toby: Not a question again but hey guys Gigi also drew this poster. The Mettaton poster.

Gigi: Oh, the Mettaton poster! It was fun adapting a tiny pixel asset into a complete illustration. It reminded me of when I used to redraw the covers from Neopets books as a kid. [I barrel ahead to my next point without giving readers a chance to ask any questions.]

Come to think of it, you should have commissioned a full illustration of that “BIIG BIBY” poster from Mettaton’s room. I would have hung that on my own wall.

Toby: Who's your favorite character from Deltarune?

Gigi: Susie. I’m also very fond of Noelle and Ralsei.

Toby: Who's your least favorite character from Deltarune………

Gigi: You mentioned once on a livestream that one of your friends reacted so negatively to Rouxls Kaard that you thought he would be widely hated. I was the friend.

Toby: Is there a piece of art that you've made for UT / DR that really sticks out to you or that you're particularly proud of?

Gigi: The work I’m most proud of is all in Chapter 3. I lost count of how many times I was told “this looks too good” when I turned in a piece of concept art.

Of what’s been shown already, I look back most fondly on my art for Chapter 2’s Cyber City. I’m also very happy every time I get to put the main characters in new outfits.

Toby: Gigi drew the concept art for Chapter 3 pretty early on, so as the Chapter evolved, sadly, many of the actual in-game assets ended up deviating from their concepts... We’ll definitely show their concept art after the Chapter is released, though!

Toby: What are you most excited to see in DELTARUNE???

Gigi: Your live script readings were mentioned in a previous DR team interview, I believe. Well, you read through the story outline for me and a few others some time ago. I think I was pretty quiet through most of it, but one particular moment made me roar “YEAAAH!” like I’d been possessed by a demon. So, probably that moment.

Toby: Anything else you'd like to share with the class? Any memories of us, anything about my games during development, after development, etc. Except for the one time we went to Korea. We can't…

Gigi: Ah… Cheese bong…*

Actually, I do have a story about the Korea trip. On our last night there, we all stayed in this super-traditional inn—sleeping mats on the floor and all—but we ended up ordering pizza for dinner…

Anyway, at one point, the conversation turned to music production. I remember crowding around your laptop on the little table in the communal area watching you give a (makgeolli-addled) demo of how you arranged “Megalovania” in FL Studio. I was too embarrassed to say so at the time, but I had always wanted to try my hand at making music of my own. Somehow, that demo was the first time in my life that music felt like something approachable to me, so I look back on it fondly. Thanks for that.

* Cheese-bong is a Korean fish sausage snack.